


Earth 2

by LtLJ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Reality, Amnesia, Apocalypse, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-14
Updated: 2006-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had seen the Jaffa take others and not bring them back; he really didn't need to be told how screwed he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth 2

**Author's Note:**

> Art by ileliberte

It was a freezing Colorado night when the Jaffa pulled John out of the pen. He was already wearing leg shackles, like all the military POWs, and they threw him face down in the dirt to get the handcuffs on him. One of the other prisoners shouted raggedly, "Make them kill you!"

"Thanks for the advice," John rasped back, hoarse because one of the Jaffa was sitting on him while the other twisted his arms behind his back to get the cuffs on. They had told him all about that in detail, and he had seen the Jaffa take others and not bring them back; he really didn't need to be told how screwed he was.

They dragged him across the compound toward one of the covered trucks. He fought them, got punched hard in the gut and the kidneys a few times, and ended up in a fetal curl in the truck bed as it jounced over the dirt road. When it reached the paved highway the ride was smoother, and John was able to stop trying to brace himself against the jolts and look up. There were three Jaffa sitting on the bench, ex-humans, wearing old army uniforms newly blazoned with Osiris' insignia. "So where are we going, guys?" John asked, because really, why the hell not. And part of him still hoped they were just taking him to be questioned again. The commander of the prison camp had always done that in the compound during the day, but maybe they were taking him to somebody higher up.

One of the Jaffa turned his head, eyes too shadowed to read, but didn't answer.

"Okay, stupid question," John said, because a Goa'uld had come to look at them yesterday, and the others had told him what that meant. He pushed with his feet and wriggled, managing to shove himself up to brace against the back of the cab.

John had heard it all in the past two weeks. He was too healthy, too strong, not beaten down from months in the camp; he should put one of his eyes out like some of the others had done. It was supposed to keep you from being chosen as a Jaffa, and even though the Goa'uld could heal that kind of damage, it lowered the chances of being snaked. But he had kept hoping he could escape. There was a rumor floating around about a camp down in Denver, where some crazy old Colonel had pretended to be half dead, until the guards got careless. Then he had broken out and got clean away, killing a lot of Jaffa and taking half the camp with him. Whether it was true or not, John just couldn't give up.

They drove for what felt like a long time, and John didn't see any glimpses of light through the openings in the canvas and didn't hear any other traffic on the highway. The truck smelled like urine and blood and fear, like so many people had been carried away in it the stink had penetrated the cold metal bed. After a while, even the adrenaline stopped thrumming in his veins, leaving John shivering and exhausted, the tight cuffs cutting into his wrists. He had contributed his jacket to the group effort to keep the prisoners with pneumonia alive, and the days of little or no food and sleeping on the freezing ground were wearing him down. Despite everything he started to doze off.

He woke with a start when the truck stopped. From the voices and lights, they were at some kind of checkpoint. The truck passed through, and John winced away from sudden light, halogen bright; they were driving through a parking garage or some other concrete structure. _We're here, wherever here is,_ he thought, his heart starting to pound again. _Crap._

The truck stopped and when they reached for him, he timed the kick just right, catching the first one in the kneecap, feeling bone crunch under his heels. That put one Jaffa out of it, but there were more where he came from, and John still got dragged out of the truck.

The Jaffa waiting were real Jaffa, the alien kind, and one of them backhanded John into a concrete pillar. As he was sliding to the floor, another grabbed him and slung him over his shoulder.

The blood rushing to his head, watering eyes from that last slap, and the hard shoulder jammed into his stomach made it hard to concentrate on his surroundings, but the elevator ride down and the stark stone corridors were starting to look familiar.

It was probably stupid, but it gave him a spark of hope. They were taking him back to the place they had found him, the scene of the crime, whatever the crime was; maybe this was just another torture session after all. Or maybe they had figured out what he was doing here. John was kind of curious about that himself.

He had come to in this place, a military installation tucked in deep under NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain, with no idea how he had gotten here. He knew who he was: Major John Sheppard, USAF, posted to McMurdo in order to spend the rest of his career contemplating his sins where he couldn't screw up anything. He didn't remember how he had gotten here, where the unfamiliar gray and black uniform had come from, and he sure as hell didn't remember when aliens had taken over the Earth.

The Jaffa who had captured him assumed he was from the resistance, there to sabotage something. But if he was, John knew he had done a crap job of it. They had dumped him in the prison compound outside Colorado Springs and questioned him, over and over again, using the shock-thing that was like being turned inside out while hooked up to a live power line. John knew he would probably have talked eventually, except that he honestly couldn't remember anything.

There was another elevator ride down that seemed to go on forever, a walk through a bare stone corridor, then he was carried into a room and dumped on his back on a hard plastic counter. He looked around wildly, trying to see past the Jaffa to get some idea where he was. It was a big room, a lab, but the bulky equipment and monitors in the walls looked more engineering/physics than medical.

A Goa'uld stepped forward, a real one, dressed in ancient Egyptian drag with eyeliner and the whole bit and it should have looked ridiculous. But John's stomach froze in terror because there was an alien body-stealing snake inside that thing, barely two paces away from him; he jerked his legs up to throw himself off the counter, straining against the handcuffs digging into his abraded wrists, anything to get away from it. One of the Jaffa grabbed the chain of his leg shackles, pinning his legs down, and another one caught a handful of his hair, wrenching his head back. He twisted and fought anyway, managing to snarl, "You can fuck off--" before the Jaffa wrapped a hand around his throat, clamping his jaw shut.

The Goa'uld stepped forward, its expression idly curious. Then it laid its hand on his chest and for some reason John's heart nearly stopped. It didn't seem to notice, running its hand over him, shoving the ragged hem of his shirt up, pinching at his ribs to judge how starved he was, absently examining him like he was a cow it was thinking of buying. He flinched involuntarily when the hand slid against his groin, though he knew he would be lucky if all this creature wanted was to rape him. Still casually squeezing his thigh, it said, "Are you sure this is the one you want?"

John hadn't realized anybody else was in the room. He blinked, looking past the Goa'uld as it turned away. There were two other people, or at least they looked like people. They were dressed in get-ups the Goa'uld or the offworld Jaffa might choose, leather and wool outfits like something out of Mad Max. Except their expressions were wrong. Goa'uld looked sneeringly complacent and Jaffa looked blank and resigned; these two looked...pissed off. The woman had short blond hair, and her jaw was set in such a hard line it had to hurt, her eyes narrow as she studied the Goa'uld. The man was red-faced and seemed caught between fury and horror. He started to speak and the woman caught his wrist to silence him. She said tightly, "There's a test we have to perform."

The Goa'uld eyed her. "The message you brought from our brother Ra spoke highly of your abilities. He seems to think this device you claim to be able to build will be useful enough to bring him back into our favor."

The woman's smile was a thin line. "That's for you to decide."

John had been half-thinking these two might be potential allies but this shot that idea out of the ballpark. They might be humans, but they were cooperating with the Goa'uld. And okay, being the guinea pig in some freak alien experiment might be better than being snaked, but not by much.

The Goa'uld considered a moment more, then stepped aside. "Perform your test."

The Jaffa shoved John down flat on the table, making his cuffed hands grind into his back. The one with the grip on his hair wrenched his head sideways, baring his neck and incidentally half strangling him. John made a choked noise, writhing helplessly against the pressure.

The man was standing over him suddenly, saying, "No, dammit, let him go! It's a blood test, I need to do it in his arm!" The Jaffa released John's head and he coughed, managing to get a full breath. As the Jaffa ripped his sleeve up to bare his arm, the man added, "It doesn't hurt."

John blinked sweat out of his eyes, realizing that last remark had been directed at him. He gasped, "Yeah, I was really worried about that."

The sarcasm must have been unsuccessful, because for some reason the guy looked relieved. He was holding something, a little silver box with a readout. He touched it to John's arm; John twitched before he realized he hadn't even felt a needle prick. The guy stepped back, staring at the readout. Then he said thickly, "It's him."

"Then build the device," the Goa'uld said. It smiled. "For your sake, I hope it will please me."

  
***

  
There were more rooms attached to this lab, and the Jaffa dragged John back through to one that had been an office. They took the cuffs off but used them to chain his right wrist to a pipe running down through the corner of the room, kicked him in the gut, then left him alone.

John finished dry-heaving and crouched back in the corner, thinking about his options. The room had been mostly cleared out at some point, though not very well. There was a desk pushed up against the far wall. Underneath it there was still some crumpled paper, a paperback dictionary with a torn cover. He was betting nobody had bothered to clean out the drawers.

The Jaffa were still moving around the other rooms, and he could hear voices, though none of them sounded like the Goa'uld. He shifted around, trying to find the least uncomfortable position. Most of his body ached, and the wrist cuffed to the pipe hurt like crazy. Sweat was drying on his chilled skin and cold radiated out of the concrete wall at his back, making him start to shiver again. The floor was just thin carpet with no padding; there was an air vent high in the wall but no one had bothered to turn on the heat. It still should have been a vast improvement over frozen ground in a barbed wire pen, but he had gotten used to sleeping in a huddle with fifty or so other people and he kind of missed them right now.

John kept waiting for the activity in the outer rooms to settle down, and after a while it occurred to him that it wasn't going to. He hadn't seen a clock in days but it had to be long after midnight. He had assumed they would knock off for the night, hopefully leaving only a couple of Jaffa to guard him, but it sounded like they were starting to work on their experiment immediately.

_That's not good._ He reminded himself this wasn't a medical lab, so whatever it was it probably wouldn't involve injecting him with things and then dissecting him to check the results. _You hope._ He rubbed his face wearily. There wasn't anything he could do until some of the Jaffa left. Trying to rest, he had just managed to settle in to the least painful position when the scientist guy walked in, two Jaffa behind him.

He stared. John stared back. The guy started to step forward and the first Jaffa said, "No closer."

The guy threw a sideways glance at the Jaffa, distinctly hostile. "Yes, yes, I know." He cleared his throat, and faced John. "I brought you some food."

John lifted a brow, watching noncommittally as the guy slid a package of rations across the floor toward him, rolling a water bottle after it. John didn't make any move toward it. "Thanks. I'm sure that'll be a great comfort." He was finding the fake-kindness way more annoying than the Goa'uld's behavior. "So what's the experiment?"

The guy threw another look at the Jaffa. He drew himself up, and, as if it was deeply significant, said, "It's something like a...transporter."

"Like _Star Trek_." John kept his expression unimpressed. With everything he had seen lately, it wasn't a shock. And the Goa'uld had never been able to figure out how he had gotten in here. If this had something to do with that, if it was why they had had him dragged back here... "Why me?"

The guy winced, started to look at the Jaffa again, stopped himself, shifted uncomfortably and lifted his chin. "What do you mean, why you?"

John grimaced, tired of the game. If the guy knew anything about how he had gotten here, he could say it or get the hell out. "You and your girlfriend are Goa'uld collaborators, you have a great idea and you need a guinea pig to try it out on, fine. Why me?"

His mouth twisted, and he said stiffly, "I can't tell you that, Colonel Sheppard."

"Major," John corrected with sour emphasis, thinking, _Now that's insult added to injury._ "It's Major Sheppard."

The guy just watched him a moment more, his expression turning exasperated. "Right," he said, and stamped out. The Jaffa followed him without comment, shutting the door.

_Whatever,_ John thought, settling back in his corner. He was too pissed off to touch the food, and he didn't want to take the chance in case it had been tampered with. For all he knew, the experiment had already started.

But not long after that, the dust puffed out of the vent high in the wall and the heat came on.

  
***

  
One of the Jaffa checked on him pretty often, and John made sure to always be slumped in his corner, glaring sullenly. He discovered that if he leaned his head against the pipe he could hear voices from the next room, though only when they were raised in argument, once clear enough for him to hear, "I swear to God, if you snap your fingers at me one more time--" From the occasional shout he knew their names now, and they had to be from Earth, at least originally; he was willing to believe an alien civilization had independently come up with the name "Carter," but "Rodney?" _Not so much,_ he thought. He couldn't hear enough to figure out what they were working on.

As the night wore on they kept sending the Jaffa out on errands, bringing supplies and equipment from other parts of the base. Finally it was quiet, and John couldn't hear any movement from the outer room.

John had been careful to keep his legs drawn up, though he was cramped as all hell right now. But he hadn't wanted anybody to take a good look at him, compare it to the distance between the pipe and the desk, and realize they had made a mistake picking this room. None of these Jaffa had seen him standing up, and he had always been skinny and it had always led people to underestimate his height. Now he pushed the cuff down to the bottom of the pipe, and scooted over to lay himself out flat, stretching his arms until his shoulders were about to dislocate, reaching his legs toward the nearest corner of the desk.

Straining, the cuff cutting painfully into his hand, he could just hook one foot around the desk's nearest leg. It was metal and mostly empty, and slid easily and silently across the carpet. He pulled it close enough to kneel up and reach the drawers with his free hand, and carefully eased the first one open. The file drawers were empty, only paperclips and a few loose index cards left behind. John opened the top drawer and thought, _Oh yeah, score._ He had figured a letter opener would be too much to hope for, but even a nice sharp pencil or a pen would have been something. But shoved into the back with broken rubber bands and eraser stubs was a nice big pair of scissors. He took them out, then carefully shut the drawer and pushed the desk back into position. Nudging it the last few inches with the toe of his boot wasn't easy, but he finally managed it.

When the Jaffa came in for his next check, John was flopped over in an awkward position, free arm twisted under his body, blood from his cut wrist smeared on his mouth and nose, looking very like someone who had just had a fatal seizure.

The Jaffa strode into the room, leaning over him, grabbing his hair to jerk his head up. John sat up, grabbing the Jaffa's tunic and slamming the scissors into his throat. The Jaffa gurgled and went down, dropping the staff weapon, and John yanked the zat out of his belt. He clawed for John, knotting a fist in his shirt, reaching for his throat, trying to kill him before he bled out. John shoved him off and held him back with a boot in his chest until the Jaffa collapsed. He didn't want to use the zat; the damn things made as much noise as a Beretta.

When the Jaffa stopped moving, John searched the pockets in his belt for the key to the cuffs and shackles. It was a standard key, the same for all the restraints, but if this guy didn't have one-- John swore with relief when he found it.

He got the cuffs and shackles unlocked and frisked the Jaffa for anything else useful. There was a big knife he tucked into his own belt, but no keycards or anything that would be helpful to get through the security doors. When John had been caught here the first time, it had been the damn code-locked doors everywhere that had trapped him. He wasn't going to take the staff weapon; it looked like a bitch to aim, plus the slow rate of fire was ridiculous.

He had just pushed to his feet when he heard zat fire nearby. He froze. _The hell?_ He stepped out of the office, moving quietly to the door of the outer room, trying to listen. It opened into a corridor, but it dead-ended not far past the doorway; the only way out was past the lab area. He heard quiet harried voices coming toward him and put his back to the wall, using the half open door as cover.

He heard footsteps, then Rodney saying, "--he's not going to be easy to convince."

As they came through the door, Carter replied, "I know that, Rodney, but he wants out of here and we're his best--" Reaching the door into the office, and the view of the messily dead Jaffa, they stopped abruptly. She finished, "Uh oh."

Rodney snapped, "I told you, he's like a ninja." He looked down at the little device in his hand, a small square thing not much bigger than a TV remote. In a strained voice, he said, "Oh. And he's behind us."

Carter winced. "Yeah, I thought that might be the case." They turned, watching John warily. They were both armed with zats, and they had packs slung over their shoulders stuffed with bulky equipment.

John was already aiming the zat. "Hi. Drop the weapons."

They exchanged a look, and dropped the zats.

Overriding Carter's attempt to talk, Rodney said rapidly, "Look, we have a way out of here and we want you to come with us. We actually came here in order to rescue you but obviously you're not going to believe that right now so--"

Carter interrupted, "You know you can't get out of here on your own. We know the way, we have the codes to get past the security, and we can get off the base without the Goa'uld following us. But we have to go now, before the other Jaffa get back."

John didn't need to think about it. They had obviously tricked their way in here for the equipment they were stealing, and he could ditch them as soon as he got outside. He had no clue what part he was supposed to play in their plan, but it was better to avoid finding out. "Okay. Pick up the weapons and let's go."

Rodney, just taking breath to argue more, deflated. He muttered to Carter, "Oh, that was way too easy."

She threw him a glare. "Let's go."

Carter wasn't lying about having a way past the security. She had a keycard that worked on all the sealed doors. Using it to get them through the door on this level, she explained, "It's an override, and it's changing the codes as we go along, so the cards the Jaffa have won't work anymore."

"Where'd you get that?" John asked, trying to watch the corridor and his new buddies at the same time.

As the door slid open, she shrugged. "I brought it from home."

The other thing that helped was the little device Rodney had. It was like radar for people, telling them if there were Jaffa in the corridor ahead, on the other side of the thick concrete and stone walls. At a corridor intersection, Rodney caught John sneaking a look at it over his shoulder and said, "This doesn't look familiar?"

That was a weird question. "No. Why should it?"

"You've seen it before. And you know us, you just don't remember." John gave him a look of narrow-eyed disgust. "What?" Rodney demanded. "You've had a substantial memory loss and you don't even know how you got here in the first place." He finished confidently, "How do you think I know that?"

"The Goa'uld got that out of me on the first day, that's how you know it." John really wished they had just gone with the "if we cooperate we can both get what we want" line rather than this crap about being here to help him. It just made him want to punch one of them, mostly Rodney.

Rodney glared at him. "All right, granted, we could have found out that way, but--"

"Guys, fight later, escape now," Carter interrupted.

They avoided the elevator, taking a maintenance shaft ladder down. The shaft entrance had been hidden behind an unmarked door, and John admitted to himself he would never have found it without their help. This was beginning to almost seem like a good idea. Carter seemed to know this place like the back of her hand, and he figured they were heading toward some tunnel leading out of the base, maybe one that the Goa'uld didn't know about.

They reached another level, ghosted past empty conference rooms and offices, then came to a set of open stairs.

"This is the hard part," Carter whispered, flattened up against the wall at the base of the stairs.

"None of this has been particularly easy, Colonel," Rodney told her grimly, checking the radar-thing.

"She a real colonel or you just call everybody that?" John asked him. It was part crack and part fishing for information. He could believe Carter had been military; she was running this op like a professional.

Carter snorted, and Rodney threw John a withering look. "Yes, she's a real colonel." He jerked his chin toward the stairs. "There's three Jaffa up there."

They bolted up the stairs into a control area with consoles facing a window into a big room. John dropped two Jaffa and Carter got the one seated at the console. She dumped his body out of the chair, dropped into it, and started typing furiously. "Are you sealing this section?" Rodney demanded. Alarm klaxons started to go off. "Because as you may have guessed the entire garrison is now closing in on our position!"

"Yes, dammit!" Carter gritted her teeth, still typing.

John was staring out through the glass partition. It looked down into a large space, warehouse-like, with a ramp leading up to a round metal alien...thing. "What the hell is that?"

Rodney looked up, his expression clearly cagey. "That's our way out."

"How?" John asked. _This...may have been a big mistake._

Carter started to answer but Rodney said, "It's a form of transport that will take us out of the base."

Carter grimaced at the screen. _Yeah, he's lying,_ John thought. "Where out of the base?"

Then down in the room below, blue things started to light up on the ring, and the inner part started to rotate. "That's it!" Carter said, and shoved out of the chair.

John stepped back, pointing the zat at them. Rodney actually looked startled, like he had expected John to be stupid enough to buy this. Gritting his teeth, John said, "You tell me what the hell--"

The crash of a door giving way sounded from somewhere nearby. Rodney shouted, "They're coming, we have to go now!"

Carter added urgently, "I know what it looks like, but you have to trust us--"

John fired twice, dropping the two Jaffa that appeared in the doorway behind Rodney. Rodney flinched away, turning to stare at the crumpled Jaffa. Carter said, "There's no time!"

John swore, because she was right, and said, "Okay, let's go."

They ran down a set of stairs into the big room, just as the alien ring whooshed out a mass of silvery blue energy that instantly vanished. John slid to a stop at the metal ramp, thinking, _Oh, hell no._ The ring held a pool of blue glittering alien light.

Rodney and Carter were yelling at him to come on, and the big doors on the other side of the room were starting to slide open, and John didn't have a goddamn choice. He ran up the ramp after them, and followed them into the blue pool.

  
***

  
They burst out of the ring into daylight, John sliding to an abrupt halt. They were standing on a low stone platform, in an open grassy plain, under a clear blue sky. The ring was still here, mounted on the platform, though nothing else familiar was. John turned in time to see the blue pool vanish. _Okay,_ he thought, breathing hard, _that was weird._

McKay unslung his pack, staggering over to sit down on the edge of the platform. He wiped sweat off his forehead. "That was way too close."

Carter nodded grimly, shifting her own pack. "My emergency shutdown routines were still in the system. They're not going to be able to get this address, or use the gate anytime soon."

John looked around. "Where the hell are we?" It was broad daylight. _Europe, Asia?_ he wondered. The wind was cold, and he could see the faint blue outline of mountains in the distance. Not far away was a rocky outcrop with some kind of stone ruin, broken columns spaced around it. "And how are we--" He froze, the words locking up in his throat.

There was a ring cutting through the sky, a faint gray-white ghost-shape against the blue. John spent a good thirty seconds trying not to see it, but no, it was really there. A ring, like Saturn had rings. Except Saturn was a gas giant, ammonia and hydrogen and ice. This wasn't even the solar system. He said, "This is an alien planet."

Rodney and Carter looked at each other. Carter said, "Yes. It's--"

"You said that thing would take us off the base." John had known they were lying, known they were about to spring something on him. He just hadn't expected it to be this...big.

"Technically, this is off the base," Rodney said, and John wanted to shoot him in the head. It must have shown on his face, because Rodney added hurriedly, "We're safe here, and we can explain to you--"

"Will that thing take us back?" John demanded. He didn't want their bullshit explanations. It had to take them back. It couldn't be one-way. What was the point of that?

"Not to Earth." Carter was watching him carefully. "We'd be walking right back into the SGC, back to the Goa'uld--"

"Then how are we getting back?" That was a really important question.

She shook her head, wincing. "It's going to be all right--"

"We're not going back." Rodney pushed to his feet, his voice harsh. "Not to that Earth. We have a way home, but--"

"I'm not going anywhere with you! Are you insane?" Except he had gone somewhere, a fucking alien planet somewhere. _God, John, when did you get this stupid?_

Rodney grimaced impatiently. "You know who we are, you just don't remember us. We went to Earth to find you and if you'd just shut up and let us--"

"That's crap." He knew it was a lie; they hadn't recognized him, hadn't known for certain he was the one they wanted until they had done that blood test, or whatever kind of test it was. "You went to Earth to steal the stuff you took out of that lab."

"Fine, yes, that too, but also you. This--" Rodney waved his arms, exasperated. "This, none of this, is supposed to be happening, it's all wrong--"

"I don't--" John shook his head. He was so screwed he didn't know where to start. "What planet is this? Is this where the Goa'uld came from?"

Rodney's mouth twisted in annoyance, as if that wasn't even a consideration. "Hello, that doesn't matter--"

"It fucking matters to me--"

"Guys, just calm down!" Carter turned to John. Her expression was sympathetic and that was almost worse. "It's not where the Goa'uld came from. It's a planet settled by an Ancient civilization, a long time ago, but no one lives here now. The Goa'uld don't even have this gate address."

At least they hadn't taken him to the Goa'uld homeworld. And John was starting to realize how he might have ended up in a secret underground base without going in through the front gate. "Are you the ones who sent me there in the first place? To the base?"

"No," Rodney said, at the same time as Carter answered, "Yes." They stared at each other and she said, teeth gritted, "Rodney--"

"What?" Rodney flung his arms in the air. "Fine, yes, we were ultimately responsible, but it certainly wasn't our intention!"

"Just-- All right, all right!" Carter took a sharp breath, and told John, "We did send you there, but as Rodney says, it was an accident. We were working on a new device that we'd discovered, and we thought we had it under control, but it caused a reaction that created a sort of gap in our reality--"

Apparently unable to keep his mouth shut longer than thirty seconds, Rodney broke in, "--drawing in fifty-seven other people who happened to be standing nearby or in the adjoining rooms and corridors--"

"Hold it, hold it." This part was almost starting to make sense. John had heard stories about the scientific outpost that McMurdo shuttled supplies and personnel to, the one where everything was so classified you had to pretend the place didn't exist. Weird stories about lights in the sky and freaky radar contacts and casualties. "Where were we when this happened?"

Carter winced again, but Rodney said impatiently, as if John was an idiot for asking, as if it was a perfectly natural thing to say, "Atlantis. It's an Ancient city in the Pegasus Galaxy--"

John stepped back, shaking his head incredulously. "Son of a bitch--"

Rodney flung his arms in the air. "I know it sounds insane, but we're part of a multi-national exploration expedition to Atlantis, and you're the military commander--"

John pointed the zat at Rodney's head. That shut him up. John said quietly, "I'm not stupid, and I'm not buying this. Tell me how to get back to Earth."

"Whoa, let's just calm down." Carter lifted empty hands, watching him steadily. "We know what this sounds like, but we're telling you the truth. And we can't go back. Earth only has the one stargate. If we go back, we'll walk right into Goa'uld hands. We have a way off this world, back to where we came from, but it's going to take us a little time."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," John said. And because at that moment it was kill them or walk away, he walked away.

  
***

  
John walked until the plain dipped down into a wide riverbed, dry except for a shallow stream running down the sandy bottom. The only sound was the trickle of water and the wind in the grass. Stuck in the prison camp, he hadn't been able to walk freely in days. Before that, in Antarctica, he hadn't been able to walk in the open without protective gear.

They hadn't lied about there being a city here once. He had stumbled on cut stone blocks all across the field, and there were some broken columns lying in the river bed, stained green with moss. After a while, he sat down on a block in the sun, watching the stream.

Earth was overrun by aliens and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He was on another planet, and he didn't even know if this water was safe to drink. Or if a space-monster was about to leap out of the bushes. He could see bugs, delicate spindly things the size of mosquito hawks, skating on the surface of the stream, but none came near him. Something should be attracted by the scent of his sweat or the dried blood, his and the Jaffa's, but it was as if he was too alien for the local insect life to notice.

If they weren't lying about this planet being uninhabited... _They could leave you here._ But being here alone might be better than whatever they wanted him to do, wherever they wanted to take him. _ Hell, they might have left already._ He knew they had gone toward the ruin up on the hill, but they had said they had another way off the planet.

He would be like the astronaut in that movie, _Robinson Crusoe on Mars_. He had vague memories of seeing it when he was a kid. _That guy did all right. Except for going crazy and seeing his dead buddy all the time._

After a time, his sore muscles were starting to stiffen up, and his throat was painfully dry. Looking at the stream wasn't helping that, so he stood up and walked back to the gate.

He stood there a while and looked at the symbols, but they didn't look like anything he had ever seen before. He found the thing that must control it, a big disk sitting on a pedestal, but it didn't have directions in English and it sure as hell wasn't intuitive. He closed his eyes, bringing back the memory of the gate back on Earth. Seven symbols had been lit when the energy pool had formed. So the addresses Carter had mentioned must have seven digits. He could hit symbols at random, for days or months or years, until he found a combination that worked. But it might go to a planet without oxygen, or with Goa'uld. Or without people, like this one.

After a time, it started to get dark, the ring glowing white in the sky. John was too thirsty to be hungry anymore, and he mostly wanted to sleep. He looked at the ruin up on the rocky hill, still outlined against the darkening sky. He had known he didn't have a choice.

  
***

  
The hill turned out to be a layer of dirt and grass over stone steps, and John climbed it carefully in the dark, pebbles slipping under his boots. He knew they had to be using the people-detector, so he wasn't going to take them unawares.

He reached the open terraced area at the top, where broken columns led up to the big square doorway. There was light inside from a battery lamp, and he could hear furious whispering: "I told you if you just gave him some space--" "Colonel, your predilection for 'I told you so's is--" "Hell, Rodney, you should talk--" John stopped on the stone threshold.

It was a big room, with gaps in the ceiling and a few creeping vines, with two doorways leading back into other rooms, shadowy and more tumbledown than this one. The floor was packed dirt, and Carter and Rodney were sitting there with some kind of weird-looking device about the size of a vacuum cleaner. It was made of silvery metal, its insides full of what looked like crystals. Tools, a couple of laptops, and other smaller weird devices were scattered around them.

Carter was looking up at him, smiling tentatively. "Hi. We saved you an MRE."

Rodney looked both relieved and pissed off, but he said, "Are you all right? You look terrible."

John rubbed the bridge of his nose. There were a couple of military-issue supply packs stacked against the wall, and there was more stuff here than they had brought from Earth. They must have had it stashed here. "Look. Just leave out the crap about knowing me, and lost cities, and whatever the hell, and just tell me what you want from me."

Rodney and Carter exchanged a look. Carter lifted a brow and Rodney grimaced and said, "Fine, you do it."

Carter looked at John and said carefully, "We told you about the experiment, that created a tear in our reality. The device formed a protective shield around us, so Rodney and I were fine, but before we could turn the device off, the tear pulled in the other people standing in the lab observation area. You were one of them. At first, we were afraid you were all dead. That we'd killed you." She hesitated, wincing with sympathy as she looked at Rodney. He got up abruptly and went to the pile of supplies against the wall, rummaging in it. She shook her head, continuing, "Then we realized what had actually happened. That you were all still alive, just in the wrong reality. Once we had that information, the linguists working with us were able to find entries in the database about similar accidents that had occurred with this device." Her expression turned dry. "Apparently what we thought was a great discovery was something that had been previously abandoned as a failed experiment. The records we found said that when you were all pulled into this reality, you would probably be near the places you would have been if you had actually lived here, and the transition would have wiped your memories of any differences between our reality and this one. We were certain we could reverse it, bring you all back, so we worked for two days--"

"Four days," Rodney corrected stiffly. "Believe me, it was four days." He pulled a small supply pack out of the pile, and cautiously approached John to hand it to him.

Carter nodded, pushing her hair back. "Right, four days." She blinked, and for a moment looked exhausted. "Time's starting to blur a little. Anyway, we finally realized that we could reverse the effect, but not from our own reality. The device had to be physically present in the second reality. So we packed up what we thought we'd need, adjusted some settings to allow us, and the device, to pass through the tear, and came here."

Rodney moved back to Carter's side. "Fortunately, unlike the rest of you, we had some control over our transition. We were able to focus the tear on an Ancient site in this galaxy, this ruined city, in fact, and the device's shield prevented us from losing our memories."

John sat down at the base of the wall, leaning back against it with the zat in his lap, taking a deep breath to try to release some of the tension in his back and shoulders. It didn't work. They were both watching him. Carter looked concerned and Rodney impatient and anxious. John wasn't sure if he believed this part of their story or not. It did sound complicated enough to be true. "So what about the Goa'uld. Where do they fit into this?"

Carter let out her breath. "Something like two years ago, in this reality, the Goa'uld successfully invaded Earth. That didn't happen in our reality. Apparently, up until that point, the two realities were fairly similar, except for the events that led up to the invasion." She shook her head. "There's not really anything we can do about it. When we reverse the device's effect, we'll be restored to our correct reality. Hopefully you'll all get your memories back, too. There was some indication in the database that that would be the case."

Rodney shifted uneasily and added, "The cover story we used to get to Earth was that we had been sent by Ra, in an effort to try to get back into the good graces of the system lords. He's dead in our reality, but apparently he's still at large in this one. And Colonel Carter had enough of his codes and information to be able to convincingly fake a message from him to Osiris."

John leaned his head back against the stone, closing his eyes. "Yeah, I was wondering about that part. And the part where all you have to do his reverse your thing there, and, you know, you haven't done it. Why you went to Earth. Why you grabbed me."

Carter sighed. "Right, well, when we got here, the device...stopped working. It shut down, and we couldn't start it again. The second transition had damaged some of the components--"

"We needed tools and supplies we knew would be at the SGC," Rodney finished. There was a hesitation, and John opened one eye to see Rodney watching him worriedly. "And we needed you. To turn it on again once we make the repair."

John sat up again, eyeing him narrowly. "And back to what I think was my original question, why me?"

Rodney glared back at him. "This is Ancient technology, and you have the Ancient gene. So do I, but I have mine from a gene therapy injection, and there are certain devices -- this one, the weapons chair, and so on -- that only work with the natural gene." Under John's gaze he shifted uneasily again. "You don't remember it, of course, but you turned it on for us originally."

"We were looking for a weapon against the Ori," Carter added glumly.

"That's involved in the part of the story you asked us not to tell you. So do you believe us or what?" Rodney demanded sharply. "Because we really need to get back to work."

"Go ahead." John cautiously flipped open the pack Rodney had handed him. Inside were some packaged supplies, and John pulled out a water bottle.

Instead of going back to work, Rodney demanded, "What?"

John frowned. "What do you mean, 'what?'"

"There's something else." Rodney glared at him suspiciously. "You don't believe us." He waved his hands in frustration. "Why the hell not? Granted, our story is insane and our actions dubious at best, but you just came from an Earth taken over by parasitic snakes that like to dress up as Egyptian gods. What's so damn unbelievable about alternate realities?"

John took a drink of the water, giving himself a moment to think. But it didn't matter; if they were telling the truth, or even part of the truth, they would have an explanation, and if they were lying, they would still have an explanation. "If I turned that thing on for you in the first place, why did you need a blood test to tell you if I was the right one? Why didn't you recognize me?"

Carter winced. "Oh, right, that."

Rodney clapped a hand over his eyes. "I forgot about that. Of course--"

"We had to make certain it was the right you," Carter told him hurriedly. "We could all have duplicates in this reality. We aren't experiencing entropic cascade failure because of the method of the transition -- our reality is apparently intruding onto this reality, and as long as it is--"

"It's technical, but yes, we had to make certain it was the right you," Rodney finished. "We think one of the differences in this reality that led to the successful invasion is that the Ancient gene isn't as prevalent. Also, your DNA has certain...markers that you couldn't have gotten on Earth."

John nodded, unsurprised. "So if I hadn't been the right one, you'd have left me there."

Rodney lifted his chin. "Yes. Probably. That was our plan." Carter smiled ruefully and he glared at her, demanding, "What?"

She shook her head, turning around to pull a tool case closer. "Nothing."

They went back to work on their alien thing, and John finished off two bottles of water, then leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. _Two years._ He might be able to believe two years. He had a scars he didn't remember, like the small rough patch of skin on his neck. A secret experiment somewhere, other realities.

The aliens were sure as hell real enough.

  
***

  
John didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he opened his eyes and morning light was filling the ruin. He had slept sitting up, leaning back against the stone wall, and somebody had put one of the foil survival blankets over him. That startled him; it worried him that he had been so out of it that one of them coming that close hadn't woken him. He still had the zat, at least. _Great, John,_ he thought sourly. _Just great._

He didn't move at first, eyes half open, checking out the situation.

Rodney was rummaging through the rations in the supply pack. Carter was sitting near the device, staring at it blankly. They were both pale and exhausted, with bloodshot eyes; John wondered if they had slept at all.

Carter rubbed her face, shook her head, then looked at Rodney. After a long moment, she asked, "Are you eating instant coffee?"

Rodney, emptying the little packet out into his palm, didn't even look defensive. "Yes. It's the quickest way to get it into my bloodstream." They stared at each other. He asked impatiently, "Do you want some?"

She blinked, shrugged. "Sure." He tossed her a packet. Ripping it open, she muttered, "And to think, I used to be considered the sane one."

So the situation was pretty much the same as it had been last night. And John was getting the feeling these two had been stuck together in this situation way too long. He pushed the foil blanket away, and rolled his neck cautiously, wincing. It was hard to believe that he could be this sore and live. _If I was dead, at least rigor mortis would have passed off by now._ "Morning."

Still hunched over the supplies, Rodney grimaced at him, his hard mouth twisted. "Do you want some coffee?"

John eyed him. Rodney and Carter looked like a coke addicts, except with coffee powder. "Not really." He managed to stand up, stretching his back carefully. "So you guys have known each other a long time?"

"We've worked together off and on. Mostly off." Carter smiled to herself, leaning over to reach for the tablet. "I'm actually standing in for someone who apparently has a lot more patience than I do." She glanced up at John, hesitated, and said, "One thing I didn't mention in all the confusion yesterday is how sorry I am that we caused all this. Rodney's sorry too, he just doesn't react well to guilt."

Rodney gave her a withering look. "I am perfectly capable of expressing--"

John heard something and turned toward the doorway. The noise was dim and distant, coming from somewhere out on the plain, a weird mechanical whoosh-thump. "You hear that?"

Carter's face went still. "The gate. It's activating." She shoved to her feet.

Rodney swore, glaring up at her. "You said they wouldn't be able to activate the SGC gate! This was your area, you were supposed to take care of this!"

"Dammit, Rodney, I did! Those routines should have--"

John was already outside on the terrace, taking cover behind a tumbled pillar. On the plain below he could see the blue-silver pool had formed in the gate. The first Jaffa stepped out of it and he thought, _Crap. Here we go again._

Rodney and Carter reached his side, crouching down behind the pillar. Rodney had a pair of binoculars and John took them away from him, focusing on the other Jaffa arriving through the gate. "There's eight of them. And the blue thing just went away."

"The wormhole," Rodney corrected, peering cautiously over the pillar. "And what do you mean, only eight? That's eight too many!"

Carter frowned. "It's not like we presented a huge threat-- Oh." She grinned suddenly. "Oh, I bet I know what happened."

"What?" Rodney demanded.

She told him, "Osiris still thinks we were sent by Ra, that Ra tricked him to get us in there so we could steal that equipment. He probably sent a force to Abydos to go after him. This is just a scouting party, trying to find out if we're still here."

"So if they don't find anything, they may just leave." Rodney looked back at the ruin, his face set and urgent. "Moving the equipment isn't going to be easy, but we can't let them find--"

John saw something that made him wince in sympathy. "They've got somebody with them, a woman." He hadn't seen her at first, where she had been hidden behind the bulk of one of the Jaffa. He was hauling her along by the chain between her manacles. Her hair was long and blond, and she was wearing civilian clothes, the shabby remains of a skirt and jacket. There was something really familiar about her, though. Then she turned, and John got a better view of her face. _Okay, that's weird._ "Uh..." He handed the binoculars to Carter. "Do you have a sister?"

"What?" She managed to grab the binoculars despite Rodney's attempt to intercept and focused them on the group below. She flinched, startled. "Whoa. That's me."

"Are you serious?" Rodney snatched the binoculars.

Carter shook her head, her face grim. "That explains how they were able to get the gate back online and get this address. I-- she -- was forced to help them."

John took the binoculars away from Rodney again, taking a closer look at the woman. Okay, he had to admit the resemblance was too close for anything but an identical twin. Which suddenly made the whole parallel realities story much easier to believe. He lowered the binoculars. "Did you two bring any real guns?"

  
***

  
The Jaffa split up, three remaining to guard the gate and Other Carter, and five heading across the grassy plain toward the ruin. They were moving slowly, spreading out, searching for tracks along the way. It was the obvious spot to search first, and John admitted he might have done the same in their place. But they didn't know about the dry riverbed, hidden by the slope of the plain.

John was able to make his way down through the rocks and ruins at the back of the hill and to the riverbed. Once there he had enough cover to sprint down it to a point where he could approach the stargate from behind. He did most of that in a low crouch, using the high grass as cover, angling around to keep the stone platform between himself and the Jaffa.

John had a P-90; Rodney and Carter had brought two, plus sidearms, C4, and detonators. John would have preferred a rifle, but this was better than the damn zat. They also had radios, and Rodney had given John his, so they could coordinate. John needed to wait until the Jaffa approaching the ruin were in the right position; if John made his move before Rodney and Carter detonated the C4, this could all go very wrong.

John crawled up behind the gate platform, then behind a tumble of overgrown stone blocks. From there he snuck a cautious peek through the grass. The three Jaffa were still waiting in front of the platform, Other Carter standing with hunched shoulders near the one who was holding her chains, half facing away. From here the resemblance really was weird, except this Carter had a greenish bruise on her cheek and blood spotting the stained white shirt under her torn suit jacket.

One Jaffa was surveying the plain to the south while the other two were looking toward the ruin. The second group of Jaffa had reached the hill and started up. _Not long,_ John thought. Then Other Carter looked up, right at where John was hiding.

John froze, knowing an abrupt move would just draw attention. But their eyes met and he knew she had seen him. She stared for a moment, then looked down determinedly at the ground, her brows drawing together in consternation. A Jaffa glanced at her, then went back to watching the others' progress up on the hill.

John let his breath out, feeling his heart pound. _Well, now we know for sure she's not a collaborator._ And the Jaffa on the hill were about to walk into the trap.

Other Carter was watching him out of the corner of her eye, biting her lip to keep her expression under control. John's radio clicked, telling him Rodney and Carter were about to make their move. He clicked an acknowledgment on the base unit in his pants pocket. On impulse, he motioned Other Carter to drop.

With barely a hesitation she did, crumpling into a convincing faint. As the nearest Jaffa leaned over her, a section of the hill below the ruin exploded.

The Jaffa turned, jerking up their staff weapons, and John popped up and opened fire. The nearest two fell without realizing where the fire was coming from, the third swung around, aiming his staff weapon. John threw himself sideways as the blast struck the rock. Before the Jaffa could fire again, Other Carter hauled on her chains, distracting him just long enough for John to roll over and take the shot. It caught the Jaffa in the head and he staggered and dropped.

John shoved to his feet, hearing the distant echo of gunfire from the hill. Other Carter was already pulling at the Jaffa's belt, searching for the key to her chains. By the time John dropped to his knees beside her, she had it and was fumbling at her manacles. "It's okay," he told her, taking the key and unlocking the chains.

"They made me get this address for them," she said breathlessly. "Somebody had tried to purge the system. I thought I stalled long enough, I thought nobody would be here--"

Rodney was yelling in John's headset, "Did you get them? What the hell are you doing?" John heard Carter yelling urgently in the background. Rodney continued, "Dammit, one of them got away and is heading toward your position! Are you listening?"

"Crap. I got it," John replied, and pulled Other Carter to her feet.

They made it to the cover of the high grass, scrambling down into a shallow trough. "Are you SGC?" Other Carter whispered. "I don't recognize you."

"No, Air Force, Major John Sheppard." Just then John heard pounding footsteps. He pushed her down and waited, aiming the P-90. The Jaffa came out of the high grass, spotted him and jerked to a halt, lifting the staff weapon. But rate of fire won over alien reflexes and John pegged him first. The staff weapon went off, blasting harmlessly into the air as the Jaffa fell.

John clicked the all clear on his radio and heard Rodney's breathless acknowledgement. Other Carter sagged down into the grass, shaking her head in relief. She said, "Oh my God. Thank you."

"No problem," John told her, helping her to her feet. He was having trouble figuring out how to talk to the exact duplicate of somebody he had just met yesterday. "So are you Colonel Carter too?"

"Huh?" She shook her hair back, puzzled. "No, I'm Dr. Carter. Samantha Carter. My father's a Colonel--"

She stopped, staring, as Rodney and Carter appeared, jogging through the grass. Carter reached them first, smiling tentatively at her duplicate. "Hi, there. Wow, this is weird."

Rodney stumbled to a halt, breathing hard. "Yes, we got them all, thanks for asking."

Other Carter stared at Carter, shaking her head incredulously. "They kept saying there was someone who looked like me, that I must be helping her, and I thought they were crazy."

Rodney began, "It's a long story--"

Carter broke in, "I'm your duplicate from another reality. An accident trapped a large group of our people in this reality, and we have to reverse the process so we can all get back. We've got some supplies and weapons we can leave with you, and I can give you a list of gate addresses the Goa'uld don't have, so you should be okay. But while you're here...mind giving us a hand?"

"Oh." Other Carter blinked, and nodded. "Sure."

John looked at Rodney. "It's only a long story when you tell it."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Fine, let's just finish this."

  
***

  
With Other Carter's help, things seemed to go a lot faster. They had considered decamping to another deserted planet, but Carter said they would have a few hours at least before the Jaffa would have been expected to report. And the longer they took, the more chance there was for one of the fifty-six other missing people to get killed back on Goa'uld Earth.

She and Other Carter got along like crazy, and John found listening to them finish each other's sentences was mildly hilarious. He didn't have anything to do but keep an eye on the gate, so he built a little fire to heat water for coffee; watching them eat the instant packets was making his stomach hurt.

When it was done, Other Carter came to help him, asking, "So you don't remember your home reality at all?"

John shrugged. "The last thing I remember I was in the rec room at McMurdo watching somebody's tapes of _Days of Our Lives_."

Other Carter snorted and almost spilled the powdered creamer. "Yeah," John agreed wryly, "If the two years I don't remember were anything like that, I hope the amnesia doesn't go away."

"When the Goa'uld attack hit, I was in a science staff meeting, arguing about the budget." She lifted her brows ruefully. "Never thought I'd miss that."

John hesitated, remembering she had been working on all this secret stuff too. He glanced at the others, who were poking at the device's insides and arguing about matrices and quantum variables. He lowered his voice, "Hey, did you ever hear of a place-- Or a code name for some project, maybe-- Atlantis?"

She shook her head, frowning absently. "No. But you know, some of the Goa'uld settlements use names from Earth mythology."

"Right." No, John didn't know that. He didn't know crap.

She went back to work, and John went back to waiting.

Not long after that, Carter and Other Carter were talking excitedly about something they had just managed to do with the crystals, and John was eating a chocolate bar and restraining himself from asking how long this would take. Rodney suddenly threw down a tool and snapped, "This is-- I am doing my best, but with the three of you, sitting here--" He glared at all of them impartially and finished through gritted teeth, "This is very, very distracting for me!"

Other Carter stared, bewildered. John demanded "What?"

Carter just covered her face and said wearily, "Don't ask. Please, don't ask."

John didn't know what the hell was going on, but he went and sat outside, which seemed to help a little.

Finally, when the sun was moving towards noon, the bright light washing out the planet's ring, Carter called him back in. She was standing, wiping her hands off on her pants, eyeing the device thoughtfully. "I think we've got it."

Rodney's face was grim. "There's only one way to be certain."

Carter told Other Carter, "You'd better leave. If something goes wrong, you could end up trapped in another reality."

Other Carter nodded. "If it's worse than this one--"

Carter agreed. "Yeah." They hugged, and Rodney clapped a hand over his eyes and swore weakly.

John walked Other Carter to the gate. They had given her one of the P-90s and a 9mm, what was left of the C4 and the ammo. While the others had been working, John had gone through their stuff and made up a pack for her with rations and supplies, and Carter had given her the leather and wool jacket she had been wearing.

At the gate, Other Carter told John, "If the alpha site is safe, there's a couple of places where they would have left word for the offworld teams that avoided capture." She took a sharp breath. "If I can contact them, these addresses to planets the Goa'uld don't know about should help a lot." She hesitated, then smiled tentatively. "I don't suppose you'd want to come along."

John scratched his head, looking off over the plain. It was sort of tempting. Staying here and fighting the Goa'uld might turn out to be a much better use of his time than whatever he was going back to. And he didn't like the idea of sending her off alone. But he didn't have a choice. "I can't. When they turn that thing on, it's going to pop us all back to wherever we came from, even the ones still on Earth. Supposedly."

"Right." She nodded. "Well, good luck. And thanks."

"You too. Be careful." John waited until she had stepped into the blue pool and vanished.

When he got back up the hill, Rodney was waiting for him on the terrace. "There's nothing we can do," Rodney said abruptly. "She knows what she's doing. She should be fine."

"Yeah." John eyed him for a moment, realizing Rodney didn't like the idea of sending her off alone either. "She will."

Rodney folded his arms, shifting uncomfortably. "I, ah, wouldn't have left the other you there." He grimaced in frustration. "It would have been a complete disaster and would have ended with all four of us -- five including Dr. Carter -- dead and fifty-six of our co-workers trapped in this hellish place, but I would have done it."

John nodded. "Okay."

"Right." Rodney lifted his chin. "Now we need never speak of this again."

They went into the ruin, where Carter was crouched over the device, adjusting crystals carefully. She looked up, and John thought she was doing a good job of keeping her expression brisk and offhand. It was only her white-knuckled grip on her tool case that betrayed her. She said, "Are we ready?"

Rodney rubbed his hands together uneasily, looking anything but ready. "Yes."

They both looked at John. He said, "Uh. What do I do?"

"Just touch the metal," Rodney told him. "That was all it needed before. When the horrific disaster occurred."

"Rodney, optimism, remember?" Carter said grimly.

John shrugged, leaned down, and touched the silver metal.

And he was suddenly...somewhere else. The walls were copper panels framed with dark blue and green, windows high in the ceiling let in bright morning sunlight, square pillars bubbled with light and color. He was surrounded by other people, there was shouting...and he had a truly spectacular headache. Then everything went dark.

  
***

  
For a while all John was aware of was that he was in a soft bed with warm blankets and he wanted everybody to leave him the hell alone. After a time he realized there were itchy little pads attached to his forehead. He kept reaching up to pry them off, and someone kept stopping him, pulling his hand back down, saying, "No, John, you must leave those alone."

He was dimly aware of a lot of noise; people talking, moving around. It sounded reassuringly like a busy hospital.

Then he started to remember the Jaffa and Goa'uld, the prison camp, something about everything being wrong. He made himself wake up, made himself drag his eyes open. There was a beautiful woman looking down at him. He said, "What-- Huh?"

She smiled in relief, touched the radio headset she was wearing, and said, "Carson, the Colonel is waking."

_What Colonel?_ John shoved himself up on his elbows. It was a hospital, there were beds, people everywhere, nurses in scrubs, doctors in white lab coats. Except the walls and ceiling were burnished copper panels, with jewel-like colors woven in, and there was weird unrecognizable medical equipment with _Star Trek_-like screens. John was dressed in scrubs and had little pad things on his head, and there was a machine near the bed with some sort of read-out in a language he didn't recognize. The beds were all full, many of the occupants still unconscious. He didn't see any Jaffa; there were a few Marines wandering around but they looked less like they were on guard duty and more like they had been pressed into service as temporary nurses.

The woman was still watching him carefully. She said, "Do you know who I am?"

John wished he knew something. Anything. "I don't--" His throat was dry and he started to cough.

The woman gave him water from a plastic cup, the only thing in the room that wasn't alien. When he looked up again there was suddenly a harried man in a doctor's coat standing over him. Staring thoughtfully at the readouts, the man said, "Yes, I think it should happen any moment."

_Aliens with a Scottish doctor,_ John thought. "What should happen any--" He knew their names. "Beckett. Teyla."

Memory hit so hard he blacked out again. He came to a moment later, breathing hard, his headache returned with a vengeance. Teyla was holding his hand and squeezing his shoulder, watching him worriedly. "John?"

"How are you feeling, Colonel?" Carson asked, frowning at one of the little medical scanners. "You remember what happened?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He blinked sweat out of his eyes. Oh yeah, he remembered. "Teyla--" He gripped her hand. "Go shoot Rodney and Colonel Carter."

Teyla smiled at Carson. "He remembers."

Carson nodded, letting our his breath, looking profoundly relieved. "Thank God." He pulled out his PDA to make a note. "That's thirty-two down and twenty-five to go."

John pulled the pads off his head, wincing. "What about the others? Is everybody okay?"

"Yes, we got everyone back and no one's badly hurt," Carson assured him. "Several people were in fairly tense situations, though from what I've heard so far I think you were the worst off. Just try to get some rest now."

As Carson hurried off, Teyla told John, "It has been a very tense time. We were so afraid we would not get you all back, and that Rodney and Colonel Carter were lost as well."

"Yeah." John rubbed his forehead. He was almost glad he had been one of the missing, prison camp and all. Being here, thinking the others were dead, then having to make the decision to let Rodney and Carter try the rescue and risk losing them too... It would have been hell. "How's Elizabeth doing?"

Teyla stood up, craning her neck to see across the crowded ward. "She is still unconscious."

John stared. "What, she was gone too?" Teyla nodded grimly, and he asked, "What about Lorne?"

"I believe he has regained his memory now." At John's appalled expression, she added, "Captain Johnson assumed command of the military, and everyone thought he did quite well."

"Oh, great." John rubbed his eyes. "You were in charge on the civilian side, with the senior staff advising, right? Or whatever was left of the senior staff."

Teyla sat down on the bed again, her mouth a thin line. "Colonel Caldwell did not believe we were competent to make such decisions. He also did not believe Rodney and Carter's assertion that they could return you all to this world by activating the device again. He ordered the Marines to stop them."

Not sure he wanted to know, John asked warily, "What happened?"

"Ronon blocked the way to the lab. After Rodney and Carter had gone, Caldwell ordered his arrest."

"Ronon's in the brig? Crap." John shoved himself upright, then winced as his head reeled.

"Not in the brig," Teyla said hastily, shoving him back down in the bed again. "Captain Johnson did not feel his actions warranted such treatment, so Ronon has given his word to remain in the Marines' ready room instead."

John stared at her. "So Johnson disobeyed a direct order from Caldwell?"

Teyla winced. "Yes."

"Great."

John talked Teyla out of her radio, and while she was called off to help the medical staff, he spent twenty minutes on it giving Caldwell the good news that he was back in command, then dispensing praise and censure to various subordinates and rescuing Ronon from the ready room. That done, John got out of bed and wandered around the ward area, trying to see who all had been among the disappeared. He saw Zelenka, Simpson, the whole Ancient tech lab. _Talk about a disaster,_ he thought, appalled. Atlantis must have been crippled while they were gone.

He ran into Lorne by the biology lab bay and they eyed each other. Lorne looked awful, his skin red and peeling. "Radiation?" John asked worriedly.

Lorne winced and scratched his shoulder. "No, sir. I was running around in Death Valley with a resistance cell."

"Oh." John nodded. "I was in a Goa'uld prison camp in Colorado Springs."

Lorne's brows lifted. "You win, sir."

"Lucky me."

John checked on Elizabeth next. She was groggy but she recognized him and Dr. Sayyar, and that was a big relief.

Coming back through the ward, he found Rodney waiting near the still unconscious Ancient tech team, watching them uneasily. He glared at John and said accusingly, "You told Teyla to shoot me."

"Yeah, sorry." John rubbed his eyes. Talking to Caldwell hadn't helped his headache. "It was a gut reaction. Where's Colonel Carter?"

Rodney folded his arms. "We've been working closely together for several weeks now, so we're taking a little vacation from each other. We've agreed to not be in the same room unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Right." John watched him a moment. Rodney still looked exhausted. "So you thought you'd killed all of us."

Rodney shifted uncomfortably. "Yes. We were... I was... It was a difficult...period."

John could imagine. "Well, thanks for figuring it out."

"You're welcome."

Zelenka blinked, moaned, and opened his eyes. His hand shaking, he pointed at Rodney. "You. _Do prdele._ I'm going to kill you."

"Oh, please," Rodney snorted. "You thought it was a great idea too."

John shook his head and went to go find his bed again.

  
**end**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Earth 2: Two Months Later](https://archiveofourown.org/works/92860) by [LtLJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ)
  * [[Podfic of] Earth 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/350296) by [Podcath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Podcath/pseuds/Podcath)




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